On Safety

Before coming here to Palestine this summer, I'd had my doubts... Fighting had broken out just between Hamas and Fatah a couple of weeks before and everything seemed so intensified when watching western media and friends kept warning me to cancel my trip. I remember speaking with George a few days before I was to leave and he kept assuring me that everything was safe and that I would get to Bethlehem and see that life was going on as normal. This could not have been more true. People here go to work, play with their children, go to bar-b-ques, have parties, attend weddings. The violence currently ravaging Gaza feels as far away as America. Farther really. Intense violence has ripped apart families here in the past and the scars are visible everywhere. However, I have absolutely zero regrets on my decision to come here and only wish I were staying the entire summer... I definitely feel both that the area of Bethlehem is safe and that the program (and the family I am living with) have my safety and my best interests in mind. I'm actually already planning out how to come back next summer...
Does that cover it, George? :)